


A kindness: A vampire's lesson about death

by shadowsplay



Category: Dark Shadows (1966)
Genre: Death, Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, Vampire Bites, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:20:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23556706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsplay/pseuds/shadowsplay
Summary: Vampire Barnabas Collins gives his lover Willie Loomis a lesson about deathAn excerpt from my novel "Dark Shadows Play"
Relationships: Barnabas Collins/Willie Loomis
Kudos: 3





	A kindness: A vampire's lesson about death

****

**"We are such stuff as dr** **eams are made on**  
 **And our little life is rounded with a sleep."  
** **― The Tempest, Shakespeare**

Barnabas was away. He had left just after sunset without speaking to Willie. Barnabas rarely left without telling Willie when he might return, and usually where he was going. Willie was forlorn, sitting in his place on the back steps. He only smoked with Barnabas, but tonight he lit a cigarette, his eyes coming to focus on the worn spot where Barnabas rested his foot when they sat together. He raised his eyes, seeking the imminent darkness of the forest as though his Barnabas was there.

Willie was usually glad when Barnabas was away. He enjoyed the thought of him finding pleasure in moving through the wider world, even if it was only visiting his relatives in the nearby New House, or buying books and cigarettes in town on rare occasions of venturing out during the day. _Something is different_ , he thought. Barnabas had seemed different for the last couple of days, though Willie only thought of it now.

Willie performed the minimum of his duties, replacing candles, then building up the fire in Barnabas' study. He found himself standing in the hallway outside the study doors, looking at the arched entrance to the gallery at the end of the hall. His body felt different looking there. He felt physical memories in his body, sensations that returned so easily, some with images and some without, some of pain and some of pleasure, some of both. The moment was pleasing, and Willie closed his eyes, missing his Barnabas. He thought of giving Barnabas pleasure with his body, of accepting the physical sensations of his loving. Willie loved his body. He cherished it, for it gave his Barnabas pleasure. For to love was to ask, again and again, how can I give my beloved pleasure? How can I give to him? To lose the ability to do these things would be unbearable.

Willie turned his head slightly, hearing Barnabas' step on the back colonnade, unlocking and entering through the outer doors to the study. The doors had an unusual vibration, as though opened awkwardly. Willie pictured Barnabas carrying a box of new books borrowed from The New House, or well wrapped additions to his curio cabinet bestowed on him by Cousin Elizabeth, who adored him. Willie was curious and happy as he turned to face the study doors, listening. He knew that Barnabas was aware of where he was in the house, and might call to him _inside_ , as he often did. But Barnabas did not call him. He could hear him moving about. Was that the sound of furniture being moved? He began to feel that he was eavesdropping and went to the front drawing room, busying himself, remaining nearby in case Barnabas needed him, happy that his lover was near.

He felt Barnabas _inside_ at last, and wiped his hands, smoothing his hair and adjusting his clothes. _Be prepared_ , he heard inside as he approached the study doors. The door opened, and Barnabas was standing there, smiling, but serious. Willie noticed that the couch had been moved before Barnabas stepped back, revealing a woman laying on the couch, conscious, but with her head back and moving slightly with intense pleasure. Willie was astonished for a moment, then looked closely at her with a certain recognition. _That is how I look_ , Willie thought, remembering well how it felt to soar inside on the intoxication of Barnabas' vampire breath.

"Come, Willie," Barnabas said, gesturing. Willie walked into the room, standing where he could see the woman better. She seemed young, but he found he could not guess her age. 

There were blankets under the woman, covering the couch and the floor. _He will take her... he wants me to watch_ , he thought with some distress. He had only seen Barnabas feed from another human once. He realized Barnabas had carefully protected him from this, until now.

Barnabas motioned to Willie's chair as he settled into his own chair opposite, near the large candelabra recently lit by Willie, the candles and the flames high and bright. Barnabas' shadow had passed over the woman, and she turned her head, finding Willie's gaze.

"Are you a dream?" she asked. Her voice seemed more clear and resonant than he recalled in a human. _That is how I sound_ , he thought. _When I am bound by his breath._

"He is real," Barnabas said, and the woman turned her head to him.

"Barnabas!" she said, happy to find him near. But Willie could hear it in her voice. What was it that he heard?

"Lillie," Barnabas answered her. "This is Willie."

Willie struggled. It felt rude, but he could only gaze at Barnabas, could only say a single word: "Why...?" Why bring her here? Why introduce her to him if she was about to die? 

The couch had been arranged so it more closely spanned the distance between Barnabas and Willie's chairs, and Barnabas leaned forward, breathing lightly in Lillie's face, so her head dropped back in a swoon of increased pleasure.

Barnabas was looking at Willie, waiting, watching him struggle with his discomfort. Willie began subconsciously looking towards the door.

"Stay," Barnabas said. "Look at her, Willie. I will help you."

Willie focused again on her, the way her body was draped with great feeling on the couch, her eyes partly closed, her head tilted slightly.

"Look. Look at her face. Ask her Willie, _inside_. Who is she? What does she have to say? _Inside_. I will help you."

Willie looked at her, and felt Barnabas' touch in the inner place where he reached to Willie.

" _Oh._ " he said, finding her. He could touch her in this same place.

"It is because I am helping you," Barnabas said.

 _Lillie_ , Willie tried inside. _Who are you? What will you say if I will listen?_

Lillie found his eyes again, her lips moving silently. Willie could feel Barnabas withdrawing the intoxication, ebbing, flowing out of her. Her eyes widened. The place where he touched her was becoming dark, full of pain. 

_He's dead_ , Willie heard her voice inside. _The sea took him. He's gone. He's gone_. Tears had started in her eyes. 

_Her heart is broken_ , Willie thought. 

"Ask her Willie."

_Lillie, Lillie... tell me._

_Gone to sea. He never came back._

_Oh no,_ Willie thought, understanding what he had seen in her. _He died... and she died with him. She hasn't returned from it. She did not make it back. She's already dead to this world._

Willie noticed her empty stare, her wilted and worn corsage, her clothes, boots and hat faded and unrepaired. Her skin was yellow and her body was thin. She was empty. He pitied her. 

"Do not think this inner death is necessary for me to eat someone," Barnabas said. "But it once was so, and may be that way at first for you."

Barnabas stood and sat on the couch, bending down to breathe on her, a sweet moan escaping on her breath as she slipped away on the returning current of relief. She looked up at Barnabas, so close, bent over her in a posture of tenderness, their eyes together.

"I see mercy in you," she said. "I see a kindness, a mercy."

"Do you want peace? I can give you peace." Willie could hear it, the vampire coming into his voice.

"Yes," she said. "A kindness..." Willie could hear her answer, inside. _He gave his life to the sea. I will give mine to you._

Barnabas removed her hat and swept her curls back from her throat, turning her head towards Willie. She held Willie's gaze then as Barnabas leaned to her, lifting her as he brought his teeth to her, piercing in one motion the large vein firmly, drawing on the immediate gush of blood. 

She seemed to Willie to return to the world, her eyes no longer sunken, her lips again full, and her cheeks with a returning blush. But it did not last, and she began to fade, her lips pushing together in a thin smile of relief, her eyes closing with the relief for a few seconds at a time in shortening intervals. Her eyes were glazed and tired, her body sunken as her life slipped away. Eye to eye she smiled at Willie, and he prepared himself to see her die. _I am here_ , he said inside, and with his eyes. _You are not alone._

He could see that Barnabas was pulling harder, reaching for more blood from her. She had lifted a gloved hand and caressed Barnabas' face, as though to pull him to her, and Willie saw the moment when her eyes became empty and her hand fell silently to the couch. Barnabas shook her slightly, taking the last of her, then released her body, pushing his face into the blankets, wiping his face and hands there for Willie's sake, then sitting back as the last blood oozed from her, slipping down to pool above her collar bone, then spilling down onto the blanket. Barnabas looked at her for a moment as he sucked his teeth, licking his lips, then closed her eyes for Willie's sake.

Barnabas turned to Willie, who could see in his eyes the vampire ascendant, glowing with new life. His breathing was different, his chest moving up as well as out. He eyes were dark and flashed with a consciousness that had been changed, that was joyfully assimilating a newness into the familiar, into the now greater being that was a vampire.

 _This is his true nature,_ Willie thought. _He does not achieve this with me. M_ _y blood has been enough... because of love. He doesn't take all of me because of love._

Willie was stunned. He felt as though he had never known Barnabas before, and did not know him now.

They sat in silence for some time, and Willie's eyes returned to her again and again. Her face perfectly relaxed, her arms limp at her sides. She was gone. She would not return. _But she was just here._

"Where is she, Willie?" Barnabas asked, his voice gentle as he spoke of her. "She is not here, but she is somewhere. I feel life further on, so much farther than humans do, until their own death. I sometimes follow, but I always return." 

Willie looked closely at Barnabas, finding the familiar creature that he loved, trying to put it all together. 

Barnabas stood, pulling the blankets around the body. He reached to Willie, and Willie stood, but Barnabas did not touch him. Willie followed him from the room, relieved when Barnabas gestured and let Willie go first, following Willie up the stairs to the close comfort of his little room.

They sat on the bed facing each other, pushing off their shoes, sitting with their backs against the walls of the little alcove around his bed. Barnabas was careful not to suck his teeth. He could still taste her, could feel her life in his own. _It is always so strange, to find myself at last on this side of God._

"Will you speak?" Barnabas asked, resisting the desire to touch Willie, to soothe and caress his leg. 

"I don't know what to say," Willie answered. He started again. "It's like a silence, this place... now between us." He pictured Lillie's body below, wrapped in a bloody blanket, and the way her eyes looked when all life had left them.

Barnabas waited.

"I always thought you killed people, you murdered them. But you _take_ their lives. You drink it out of them."

"Sometimes I take, and sometimes it is given," Barnabas said.

"But you take it either way."

 _A carnal knowledge_ , Barnabas thought. _A little life... rounded by a swirl in my scarlet tea cup._

"It is very intimate," Barnabas confessed. "And not always deserved. Not at all." His voice became sweet, close in the tiny room. "I live on your blood now, my love. But who will feed us if you become like me? I can go weeks, maybe several, but then I must feed again." There was a long silence.

"Is this all I must face before you will make me?" Willie asked.

"If you choose it, there are other things. But it is mainly this."

"Will you tell me what the other things are?"

"In time I will tell you. We are starting here. Perhaps you will become like me, Willie. But we have not made that journey, not yet. Think on this now, find what is _now_."

 _How wise he is_ , Willie thought. _Was his maker this wise?_

"Will you tell me, Barnabas. Who made you? How did you become... this?"

Barnabas was silent, but his eyes were full of meaning, of history, of sorrow.

"Not yet," was all he said _._

Barnabas turned on the bed, stretching out next to Willie, shoulder to shoulder without touching, watching the candlelight dance on the ceiling. He brought his arms up, his hands above his head, purposely choosing a position that meant submission to Willie. He let Willie decide whether to touch or kiss him, and he did not, but then Willie touched Barnabas' sleeve, curling it lightly as he often did when he was lost in thought.

 _He is lost._ Barnabas thought. _But he is finding his way, back to the source of life._ He was aware of Willie struggling as Barnabas thought of his own younger years, so long ago, when he prayed endlessly, needing to make his devotion known to God. But God had somehow come to live in him.

Barnabas waited. _How can I help him?_ He waited for inspiration. How might their love help Willie find his way back, returning to his place in this hidden, solitary life?

"Will you love me, Willie?" he asked quietly. He did not often take pleasure from Willie in this way, keeping it as a special moment between them.

"Yes, my love," Willie said, sitting up with a happy smile of ready delight.

Barnabas sensed a sweetness of much needed relief spreading in Willie, who moved to carefully undo the old-fashioned buttons, opening and pulling at his gentleman's trousers, bending to him, reaching to the source of Barnabas' pleasure with a quiet, but pressing relief. 

Barnabas was silent, listening to Willie's breath as Willie made love to him, as Willie followed the familiar memories of his own need met, his own release given, all that he had felt and made a gift of in his submission to Barnabas. All in a familiar kindness—a practiced way to each other—now made as a passionate return, Willie loving with his mouth just so and with the certain motions that Barnabas desired, steady on until Barnabas was carried on a resounding brilliance that surged through him again and again as a vampire and a human orgasm at the same time.

Willie looked upward as Barnabas cried out, watching him moved by a long season of fruition, swallowing from him with pleasure, season upon season, marveling then at his Barnabas, now loosened and soft on his bed, his mouth and eyes closed and soft, his hands open and relaxed above his shoulders. Willie was transfixed, astonished by his transformation. He sat looking at his Barnabas, who was not sleeping, but lay cast adrift on his pleasure, floating undone and still beside Willie on his patchwork pile of blankets.

 _I gave you this perfect bliss_ , Willie thought, moved beyond anything that love had brought to him thus far.

 _I must give this to you always, and forever_.

~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~ ... ~

#### This story is an excerpt from my vampire themed, m/m slash novel

#    
  
[DARK SHADOWS PLAY](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14868891/chapters/35337951)

#### Over 1,300 Visits | Over 4,000 Pageloads | 26 Kudos

  
_200 year old vampire Barnabas Collins lives in The Old House with his servant and lover,  
Willie Loomis. Barnabas transforms Willie through his instruction and love, carefully developing  
Willie's understanding of what it will mean if he chooses to become a vampire._   
  


#### Dark Shadows Play is a vampire themed, romantic, erotic, and explicit, m/m  
slash fanfiction, with real BDSM sexuality, based upon the original  
TV series 'Dark Shadows.' It is the length of a standard novel.  
  


####  _Two lovely COMMENTS on my novel 'Dark Shadows Play' (Thank you!)_

**Comment by Lisa on Chapter 1 - Sun 28 Jul 2019**

> These are wonderful! You really capture the essence of the characters. As I am obsessed with Barnabas and Willie as a couple, these are so satisfying to read. In fact, they’ve become before bed indulgences that sometimes continue after I’ve fallen asleep- my dreams are marvelous! Thank you!

**Comment by chelldu on Chapter 4 - Wed 26 Dec 2018**

> This is incredible. I'm amazed at the poetry you sing, the scenes as so compelling and detailed, I cannot help but picture them as vividly in my head as if I were there. The bond between them is deep and utterly intimate, in a way only the two of them can unconsciously understand. It's simply astounding. It hits very close to heart in more ways than one, even though I've never met a vampire hahahaha. Thank you for sharing this story with us!

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